[spectre] Eric Kluitenberg, Legacies of Tactical Media (INC Network Notebooks 05)

[Geert Lovink]

http://networkcultures.org/wpmu/portal/publications/network-notebooks/no-5-legacies-of-tactical-media/

Tactical Media employ the ‘tactics of the weak’ to operate on the  
terrain of strategic power by means of ‘any media necessary’. Once  
the rather exclusive practice of politically engaged artists and  
activists, the tactical appropriations of media tools and distribution  
infrastructures by the disenfranchised and the disgruntled have moved  
from the margins to centre stage. The explosive growth of mass  
participation in self-mediation incountless blogs, video sharing  
platforms, micro-blog ging, social networking has created an  
unprecedented complexity in the info-sphere.

While this frenzy of media activity has been heralded as the catalyst  
of the new democratisation movements in North-Africa and the Middle- 
East, the anti-austerity/precarity movements in Southern Europe and  
the UK, and the recent #occupy movements in the US and Northern  
Europe, its increasingly intransparent complexity combined with the  
post 9/11 ‘crash of symbols’ has thrown its political efficacy  
into question. The demise of WikiLeaks as the crown jewel of on-line  
whistle-blowing has added to a thoroughly opaque picture.

More than ever tactical media operators require effective instruments  
to the create tactical cartographies they need to navigate the hybrid  
realities they are immersed in. This notebook traces the legacies of  
tactical media to begin creating these hybrid cartographies.

about the author: Eric Kluitenberg is an independent theorist and  
writer on culture, media and technology. He is editor in chief of the  
Tactical Media Files - an on-line documentation resource for tactical  
media practices world-wide.

colophon: Network Notebooks editors: Geert Lovink and Sabine Niederer.  
Producer: Margreet Riphagen. Copy editing: Allison Guy. Design: Studio  
Léon&Loes, Rotterdam http://www.leon-loes.nl. Publisher: Institute of  
Network Cultures, Amsterdam. Supported by: School for Communication  
and Design at the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences (Hogeschool  
van Amsterdam, Domein Media, Creatie en Informatie) and Stichting  
Democratie en Media..

Download the pdf here: networkcultures.org/_uploads/ 
NN5_EricKluitenberg.pdf

If you want to receive free paper copies of this pamflet, lets say 10  
or 20 for your Occupy scene of media activism class please write to books at networkcultures.org 
  and mention a more or less reliable postal address. Please note:  
without a postal address it is difficult for us to send you copies!

Eric Kluitenberg, Legacies of Tactical Media - The Tactics of  
Occupation: From Tompkins Square to Tahrir, Network Notebooks 05,  
Institute of Network Cultures, Amsterdam, November 2011.